Page 109 of The Gathering Storm

She smiled and patted his cheek. ‘Respectable. What a word! So classe moyenne. I want you to find Monsieur Chapel for me, speak to him.’

‘Where are the Billancourt studios?’

‘At Boulogne-Billancourt, of course, but you do not need to go all the way out there. He is staying at the Crillon. You can catch him there. I want to know what happens to his original artworks for the sets, and whether I can buy them. I can sell them for a great deal of money to my Americans. And invite him to one of my parties.’

‘Which one?’

‘We will make one around him, of course. Do not ask foolish questions.’

The Hôtel de Crillon was an eighteenth-century stone palace on the corner of the place de la Concorde, where once Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette had lived – and in front of which they had died under the guillotine. It had been turned into an hotel in 1909, and was the smartest and most expensive place to stay in Paris, along with its older and more traditional rival in the rue de Rivoli, the Meurice, which James knew well from his time with the Windsors.

He waited outside the hotel for a while, then went in and lurked in the sumptuous foyer. He was just considering a more direct approach – telephoning to Chapel’s room – when the lift doors opened and the man himself appeared. James saw at once that he had not changed much since he had seen him last. His years sat lightly on him: his face was still taut and unlined, his pale hair still thick. Under an admirable suit – he was obviously prosperous – his body was lean and agile. He was quite tanned, as was to be expected if he had recently arrived from California, and his eyes were startlingly blue in his brown face. They were also sharp – they picked out James almost as soon as James spotted him. He came across with a pleasant smile, and a slightly quizzical air.

‘It’s James Morland, isn’t it?’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘I’m surprised you remember me,’ James said.

‘I have a good memory for faces,’ he said. He saw that James was looking with polite enquiry at the woman on Chapel’s arm, and said, ‘My wife, Emilie.’

‘I didn’t know you were married,’ James said, shaking the delicate hand held out to him. She was very slender, petite, and strikingly beautiful, with dark hair and eyes.

‘It’s very recent. Emilie was Emilie Delancourt before she did me the honour of accepting my hand – one of Warner’s rising stars. You may have seen her in The Glass Forest and We Three.’

A movie actress. That made sense. James made a polite murmur, not having seen either of those films. ‘And what brings you to Paris?’

‘We are on our honeymoon,’ Chapel said. ‘April in Paris – what could be more romantic?’ He lifted a hand. ‘I know, it’s May. We started off in April, but it takes time to cross the Atlantic. The intention was sound. Later, we hope to see a little of Italy. I had a desire to visit Europe one last time.’

‘Last time?’ James queried.

Chapel’s face grew serious. ‘War is coming, and it will be bad. If there is anything left afterwards, it will not be fit to visit for a generation.’

‘Do you really think there will be a war?’

‘Don’t you read the papers? Don’t you know what’s going on in Germany?’

Emilie gave him a minatory look. ‘Darling,’ she reproved.

He laid a hand over hers where it rested on his arm. ‘You are English, you were spared the full horrors of the last war. The next one will be even worse.’ Then he made an obvious effort and smiled. ‘Your sister, how is she? Well, I hope.’

‘Yes, she’s well, thank you.’

‘She’s not here with you?’

‘No, she’s back in England. At Morland Place.’

‘Ah, Morland Place!’ James had heard the edge of eagerness in Chapel’s voice, and apparently so had Emilie, because she frowned slightly, and glanced at her husband. ‘She spoke about it so often, I feel as if I know it,’ Chapel went on, and added to his wife in explanation, ‘Morland’s sister was a well-known New York hostess many years ago.’ Then to James, ‘Send her my regards, will you, when you write?’

‘Of course,’ said James. He drew a breath to begin on his own business, but Chapel seemed to have lost interest in him. ‘It was good to see you again, but we should go,’ he said, beginning to turn away. ‘I am due at the studios later today and I promised Emilie a look at the shops first.’

James was not to be put off that easily. ‘I wonder if I might walk along with you for a few moments. This meeting wasn’t entirely accidental …’

As James explained later to Hélène, he was only partly successful. It would have been too awkward to bring up the subject of the artwork originals straight away, but he had secured Chapel’s agreement to come to dinner at Hélène’s, and an invitation for himself to visit the studios, so there would be plenty of occasions for introducing it more subtly.

At home after work, as he was changing his trousers to go out with Emil, he thought about Chapel and his new wife, and that little awkwardness when he had asked after Polly. James had got the impression on a previous meeting that Chapel was carrying a torch for his sister, whom he had obviously known quite well when they both lived in New York. He wondered whether he should tell Polly about the meeting. But there was no suggestion the torch was reciprocated – and, besides, it was clear Chapel was not intending to come to Europe again.

It occurred to James then that Chapel had said something odd, and he paused, trousers at half mast, while he tried to prise it out of his memory like a raspberry pip from between the teeth. Ah, yes, that was it: talking about the coming war, he’d said, ‘You are English, you were spared the full horrors of the last war.’ You are English. But wasn’t he English? And if not, what was he, and why had his war been worse?

He thought about it for a bit, then shrugged, and finished dressing. Probably just a slip of the tongue.